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NORWEGIAN-AMERICANS
TRAIN TO INVADE GERMAN-OCCUPIED NORWAY IN WORLD WAR II.
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S. Dakotan
among men in WWII battalion trained to invade Norway, fight Germans
JARETT C. BIES
jbies@argusleader.com May 29, 2006, 1:55 am
Growing up in Orland Township, southwest of Madison, Harold Hanson often spoke
Norwegian at home.
But he never realized what a big difference his lineage would make when it came
to serving in the U.S. Army during World War II. His heritage allowed him to be
part of a unit made up entirely of men of Norwegian descent, who trained to
invade their home country to fight the Germans.
Four years after graduating in the Orland Township Class of 1938, Hanson became
a member of one of the U.S. Army's most highly trained fighting forces, the
99th Infantry Battalion Separate.
"I was drafted in October of 1941 and had already had a year of
training," says Hanson, 86, who now lives in Sioux Falls with his son,
Harlan. "I was with the 4th Division in Fort Gordon, Georgia, when I heard
they were looking to form a new unit."
Hanson's orders were cut, and he was happy to hear he would leave Georgia for
Minnesota.
"Closer to home," he says. "When I got there, it was eight of
us. We came to a camp, and there was nothing."
What started with Hanson and seven other men became the 99th, 1,001 men from
across the United States who started training at Camp Ripley, Minn., only to
move to the mountains of Colorado to develop warrior skills at 10,000 feet.
These men endured lessons in altitude sickness and mountaineering. They would
go to war fighting upon 7-foot, 18-pound wooden skis. One bond connected the
men: each was either a Norwegian native or a first-generation Norwegian.
Hanson's father was born in Sweden; his Norwegian mother was born in the United
States.
What the U.S. Army planned for the 99th never came to be. In 1942, Normandy
Beach was just another stretch of sand and cliffs on the French coast. What the
U.S. and British High Command saw in the 99th was a way to take the fight back
to the Germans far north of the eventual landing point on D-Day.
"We were a special unit, trained to invade northern Norway," says
Hanson. "We were going there to join the resistance. And we were going to
face 400,000 to 500,000 German soldiers who occupied Norway."
Though a Norwegian invasion plan was scrapped, the 99th Battalion's sharp
skills made them an invaluable unit in the battles that rolled across France,
Belgium and into Germany. For more than 100 days, this "bastard
battalion" might not have used their skiing and snowshoe training, but
they fought Germans and, in the end, made it to Norway.
"That's what we were activated to do," Hanson says. "We arrived
on ship in June (1945), and we all had relatives there."
The unit was received as the honor guard for Norway's King Haakon, and the
Norwegian people enveloped the soldiers with affection as heroes. Most of the
men in the 99th were Midwesterners, from the Dakotas, Wisconsin and Minnesota,
and during their years together, from Minnesota to Colorado, through combat and
champion's parades in Oslo, they became family.
Through time, the family has become smaller. Earlier this month, a luncheon
reunion for the unit hosted eight surviving members and 33 relatives.
Hanson, as the last known living member of the dozen or so men from South
Dakota who served with this ski-troop battalion, hopes the tale of his unit is
remembered and honored. For here is a story worth remembering.
"We were a unit not covered by Hollywood and such, but we are proud of
what we did," he says. "But it is surprising to me how few people
have even heard of the 99th."
Built from scratch
Shortly before invading the "Low Countries" and
cutting the British and French forces into two pieces, Hitler's army and navy
invaded Norway. Before May 1940, the Germans had defeated resistance there.
"Many of the 99th were still foreign nationals, sailors stranded in the
U.S. after the Germans took Norway," says Robert Hoffland, an amateur
historian and son of Joseph Hoffland, a deceased member of the 99th.
Most of the men for this battalion came from the Midwest. Hoffland says it was
an interesting melange of personalities. "You had these street-wise
fellows from Seattle and New York, and a lot of second-generation fellows from
the Midwest who were not nearly as savvy," he says. "But they really
came together to form a cohesive unit."
Hanson says among the 99th were many men much older than the typical Army
private. "There were men up to 40 years old in that training," Hanson
says. "Some of the Merchant Marine, they were sailors, so they were
unfamiliar with the ways of the infantry."
While age might have played against those men during the daily 15- and 20-mile
hikes and cross-country-ski-training exercises, Hanson says the wisdom of
experience helped them.
"One thing about the 99th, we had ingenuity," he says. "We had
guys in our unit who could fix anything, or repair equipment that broke
down."
Training never used
Kurt Hackemer, an associate history professor at the
University of South Dakota, says a designated unit trained to fight in a
specific terrain was uncommon in the U.S. military in the 1940s.
"The army had done that with the 10th Mountain Division. They were
alpine-trained and helped to establish the Alpine Warfare School for the U.S.
military," Hackemer says. "What's odd about the 99th is where they
ended up in battle."
Unlike their counterparts, the 99th never made it to the mountains. The 10th
Mountain Division fought in the Italian Alps during World War II. The 99th
fought in France and Belgium and into Germany. The unit earned five battle
stars, indicating their significant role in the conflict.
But their training ran the gamut of alpine experiences. "It was really
rugged, and we had lots of washouts," Hanson says, referring to the men
who could not endure the high altitude and intense physical training.
Equipped with 70- to 90-pound packs, heavy snow boots and cumbersome wooden
skis, the men of the 99th pushed themselves in the thin air of Colorado.
Hanson remembers the subzero temperatures at night and how well the unit
performed on a 50-mile trek across the Continental Divide.
"We set a record that no battalion in the 10th Mountain could top,"
he says. "In the spring, we learned rock climbing and
mountaineering."
In addition to their training on skis and snowshoes, the men of the 99th
received Norwegian language training, tested new equipment and, soon
thereafter, were off to New York, then to Europe.
Doug Bekke, curator of the Minnesota Military Museum at Camp Ripley, says the
decision not to invade Norway was never seen as a defeat for the 99th.
"The (U.S. and British) commanders realized there were few viable ways to
get that many men into Norway," says Bekke. "There were fears that
the fighting would do more damage to the Norwegian population."
The lack of an exit strategy for the battalion also posed a problem. But while
in the United Kingdom, Hanson and his comrades learned about the chess game
that is war.
"Each time we moved from one place to another in England, the Germans
moved units to counter us," Hanson says. "For nine months, whenever
we moved, they moved."
The 99th Battalion Separate landed at Normandy seven days after the initial
invasion. After their landing, they spent 101 days in combat.
'Bastard battalion'
Other than the 442nd Battalion, which was made up of
Japanese-Americans and served in the Pacific Theatre of Operations during the
war, the 99th was the only unit comprised of men from a single nationality.
As British and U.S. forces began to break out from the Normandy beachhead, the
99th fought at Cherbourg. Hanson remembers that morning with clarity.
"We overran some Germans who were cooking breakfast," he says.
"They had the whole meal cooked up, rice with raisins, hot food. We
captured them, and we argued about whether or not they might have poisoned the
food."
In the end, it was a hot meal for the 99th, compliments of their foes.
As they traveled through France, Hanson says he remembers the first enemy fire
that came close to him. "We were moving in convoy, and the strafing from
German fighter planes was getting bad," he says. "Some of our guys
got hit."
In Belgium, Hanson was on guard duty with another soldier when an artillery
bombardment pinned both men down. Hanson held his position, alone, after the
other man panicked.
"In the morning, I covered for him because he was so scared, he wouldn't
have done us any good had he stayed with me," he says. "I had a lot
of trees over me that night, and I was just lucky nothing hit me."
In the fall of 1944, the retreating Germans staged a massive counterattack in
hopes of seizing the port city of Antwerp, Belgium.
In secret, 250,000 German soldiers were redeployed, then burst forward through
the thin U.S. lines. The initial German success led to a gigantic
"bulge" in the Allied lines and gave the struggle its name, "The
Battle of the Bulge."
In the small town of Malmedy, Belgium, Hanson and the 99th earned honors when
they came to the rescue of 52 men who stood in the path of the German tanks and
troops. "The U.S. units stood tall, and it was an amazing display of
defensive warfare," Hackemer says. "The units held up just enough to
bog the Germans down."
Hanson remembers relieving those four dozen men. "One told me the happiest
day of his life was when he saw the Norwegians coming," he says. "We
reinforced their line and held it."
After the battle, the battalion served with General George Patton's 3rd Armored
Division for a time, earning respect for its ability to keep up with the
motorized vehicles. The men mopped up German units bypassed during the Allied
movement across France and Belgium, guarded hoarded treasures the Germans had
stolen and stored in salt mines near Merkers, Germany, and helped to return it
to the Riechsbank in Frankfurt.
Before the Germans surrendered on May 7, 1945, 51 men in the 99th had been
killed in action. Another 207 were wounded. Fifteen Silver Star medals were
earned for bravery in combat, while 20 Bronze Star medals and 305 Purple Heart
medals went to soldiers in the 99th.
Hanson says the one award that meant the most was the "CIB," or
Combat Infantryman's Badge, given only to soldiers who see the chaos of the
battlefield. His battalion earned 814 of these noteworthy badges.
On to Norway, at last
Two days
after the end of the war in Europe, Hanson and the rest of the 99th traveled by
ship to Oslo, Norway. "Most of them had family in Norway, so they looked
up their grandmothers and things like that," Hoffland says. "It was a
time of celebration."
Greeted as heroes, even though they did not invade their homeland, Hanson says
the explosive happiness of the time was contagious. "We had an Italian
fella who'd come into the unit as a replacement," he says. "He told
us to just call him 'Peter Olson' when we go to Norway."
Just two hours after landing, soldiers came back to the ship to request
permission to get married, Hanson says. "We ended up having 70 men out of
1,000 who got married during our stay in Norway."
Hanson returned home and kept his connections with the men he served with
during the war. He still attends reunions and keeps the 99th Battalion's newsletter
going out each month.
While he's proud of his service, others point to his life after the war.
"Really, more than what he did in the war, what impresses me about Harold
was the way he took care of his wife, Crystal," Hoffland says. "He's
a hero. His wife had Alzheimer's, and he kept her at home for eight years,
taking care of her. I was blown away by what he did for her."
Hanson's wife died in 2004. The couple was married May 4, 1943, in Sioux Falls.
"It was Joe Foss Day, and there were parades and lots of excitement,"
he says. "I still miss my wife. I miss her to this day."
Bekke enjoys sharing the 99th's story, celebrated at the Camp Ripley museum
where the unit began. But he realizes respect must go out not only to unique
and lesser-known stories like theirs, but to all veterans.
"You talk to veterans and realize: Each man is a book waiting to be
written," he says, "for each man has their own answers to the
questions we all have: How did you stay alive? What was it like?"
In Harold Hanson, the 99th Battalion's story continues to be told.
Reach reporter Jarett C. Bies at 977-3925.